


Different Shades of Red

by alienchrist



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-06
Updated: 2013-03-06
Packaged: 2017-12-04 11:34:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/710352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alienchrist/pseuds/alienchrist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some shades of lipstick were called ‘fuck me’ red. Jack’s was ‘fuck you’ red. Shepard loved it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Different Shades of Red

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to biowawarevalentines on tumblr, written for Alfeegi.

Some shades of lipstick were called ‘fuck me’ red. Jack’s was ‘fuck you’ red. Shepard loved it. 

The crew probably gave her a wide birth in the bathroom. What time of the day did she go in there to shower, touch her hair up a little with a razor, and apply that fuck-you red lipstick and eyeliner like kohl? Shepard wondered, did Jack go in at odd hours when she wouldn’t be disturbed, so no one would bother her with inane talk? Or did she relish the way people cleared out as if her staccato chorus of profanities was an attack? That’s what she wanted, after all,each _fuck shit bitch hell_ a hollow shell, a shot across the bow, a challenge. _Don’t you dare touch this. Get any closer and you’ll regret it._

_Well, as they say on the extranet_ , Shepard thought, _challenge accepted_.

Shepard wanted to tell Jack she understood it all. The posturing, the sneers and war paint. Back when she ran with the gangs she kept a sometimes-whatever kind of lover who complained when she wore makeup. They won’t take you seriously, Shepard’s lover said. And kissing girls in makeup is a drag. Tastes bad. 

Like Shepard ever had trouble being taken seriously. Even when she played nice, she scared folks so much they called her by her last name. Did it even when she was a kid in school, whenever she felt like going. 

Besides, Shepard wasn’t exactly waiting around to be kissed, let alone critiqued on it. She was Commander Fucking Shepard, she had a lot of work to do and the rest of the galaxy had to haul ass to keep up. She had no time to get moon-eyed over recruits, even the one with tattoos she daydreamed about tracing, and that amazing fuck-you red lipstick. Jack was beautiful, powerful, everything Shepard prized. 

But she didn’t expect the admiration to be returned, nor did she count on fairytale overtures from the likes of Jack. Not from a woman who rolled her eyes even when she thought no one was looking, whose very posture seemed to ask why everyone thought Shepard was such hot shit. Jack’s power made her burn hot, too hot to be encumbered by clothes or needless friendships. Shepard respected that. Jack was fresh out of a prison, and hadn’t figured out how to carry or throw away the metric shitton of fuckery piled on her since childhood. Shepard tried to tell her she could relate, but any hand on that bare shoulder was slapped away. Jack wasn’t there yet, not ready to swallow the completely ridiculous truth that no one is alone and people need each other. Shepard understood that too.

You make friends, you take lovers, you forge alliances, and you wait for them to topple like sandcastles. Sometimes you even step on them yourself, accidentally or on purpose.

Shepard left corpses in alleys and rivers on Earth. She left them on Akuze and on Virmire, and in little sealed lunch box shelters on backwater planets. She was every bit as dangerous as Jack. That didn’t keep her from imagining holding her hand. She found herself daydreaming about painting Jack’s lips in the morning. Her hands seem less steady, since Cerberus, and she’d probably mess it up. Jack would laugh and say “You suck, Shepard. Guess there really are some things you can’t do.” But it would be the fun kind of insult, and Shepard could reserve the right to smudge it right afterward. Shepard liked the taste of make up. She found it a little bit sweet.

 

But when the truth came out about Jack’s past, when she pressed things even a little, when things came to a head, the dangerous bitch all but had a nervous break down. Shepard watched her pace beneath the beams and girders of the Normandy like a caged animal. It was strangely endearing to see Jack feel so much. Shepard wished she could hold her without the threat of being thrown across the room. Instead, she reaffirmed her support and held hear peace. She gave Jack the time she needed.

They didn’t hook up before they went after the Collectors. Shepard was surprised she turned up at all, and while it was disappointing it wasn’t for the sex Jack seemed so ready to dole out casually, it was still a good night. There were a lot of other things to worry about before Shepard got too choked up about not getting laid. She didn’t bother thinking of it as her last night alive. She was still Commander Fucking Shepard, and the galaxy still had to haul ass to keep up. There would be another chance.

She didn’t get to kiss Jack that night, but she did hold her hand, and helped wipe away the eyeliner trails with the corner of a wash cloth. 

“There’s more stuff to wash up in the bathroom,” Shepard said. They were laying on the bed, Shepard’s arm around Jack’s shoulders. “Grab some pajamas and sleep in a nice bed for once.”

Shepard undressed and slipped under the covers. Jack did her thing in the shower. After she finished, Jack leaned in the doorway, holding up a tube of pearly pink lip gloss. “Seriously, Shepard?”

“It was for that party thing with Kasumi,” Shepard groaned. 

“Right. The thing with the dress and heels. How come I never got to see you in that?” Jack snickered, and crawled next to her on the bed. Shepard noticed she eschewed the offer of pajamas. Jack’s embrace of casual nudity could hardly be as surprising. She briefly considered flattening her palm over the curve of Jack’s ass, but thought better.

“If we get through this, I’ll take you to the nicest restaurant on the Citadel, and I’ll wear the dress and heels.”

“Don’t do that for me,” Jack muttered, lip curling as she pulled a blanket over her shoulder. “I couldn’t care less about that shit.”

“Did I say it would be for you?”

“And I’m not dressing up.”

“You’d better not.” 

It didn’t happen, though. Sometimes you kick over sandcastles. Sometimes you have to.

  

Shepard deserved the punch Jack gave her when they crossed paths again, after the Collectors, as the Reapers started bearing down. She sincerely hoped the royal bawling-out the infamous Subject Zero gave her would be left out of any vids made about her life. Unfortunately, with so many witnesses, it would probably go down in the history books as one of the worst she received. Because Shepard understood, and she was sorry. But there wasn’t a damned thing to be done about it. Whatever friendship existed between them was dissolved, and once again, Shepard didn’t have the time to sigh and grieve for what she couldn’t have. 

Shepard considered that just another bird flown, another pile of shapeless sand behind her. But when Jack contacted her to meet at the club, she jumped at the chance.

And they came to a conclusion, sort of. They couldn’t be together immediately, and Shepard couldn’t tell Jack the truth. The visions were becoming nightmares, and her bones felt old though she wasn’t yet forty. Jack had a future with her kids. Jack deserved so much more than someone who would leave and break her heart again. Shepard knew better. And yet, somehow, they ended up on the dance floor.

“Everyone knows you can’t dance, Shepard,” Jack laughed. She laughed when Shepard tried anyway, and when she stopped and kissed her instead. It tasted of chemicals, but so sweet.

“About damn time,” Jack said, and kissed her back. She said that same thing many times as the night wore on.

Before they fell asleep, they watched the fish in Shepard’s quarters, clothed comfortably in little more but silence.

“That dumb date to the Citadel restaurant,” Jack said, tracing over the line of Shepard’s collarbone, “You still wanna do that?”

Shepard had assumed Jack forgot that over the years. Her cheeks colored slightly. “If you do, I’m game.”

“You’ll wear the dress and heels?”

“Just try to stop me.”

“I was thinking, a dress ain’t my style, but maybe a suit. Something with a skinny tie.”

“You’ll look stunning.”

“Hell yeah I will,” Jack smirked. “Everyone’s gonna be jealous of you.”

They planned the date in detail. Jack rolled her eyes and snorted plenty of times, but by the end, she was just as into the fantasy as Shepard was. They planned the dinner for some day in the mythical, Reaper-free future. Shepard’s bones felt older still. 

These days it felt like every promise she made came with a secret asterisk. She was, as the old Earth saying went, filling out checks her ass couldn’t cash. Shepard told everyone around her to drive for the day when all of this evil was over. But for once in her life, she was lying when she said she believed that day would ever come.

 

“When this is done, I expect to get laid,” Jack told Shepard via the hologram, minutes before that last push.

“After we go on our date,” Shepard volleyed back. “I’ll blow your mind.” 

“We might need to relocate that date,” Jack snorted. One of the mos famous and important places in the galaxy might be damaged beyond repair and she _snorted_. “I’m in no mood to wait for your slow ass. Not again.” 

“I love you too,” Shepard said. She didn’t cry. She never fucking cried.

 

After close to a decade of construction, that prissy restaurant Shepard always meant to get to re-opened on the Citadel. Something about restoring normalcy, or driving the economy, or some of the other bullshit businessmen and politicians always starte in on when they decide to spend money on a venture instead of putting food in children’s mouths. Still, Jack was waiting at the door with her reservation the day it opened. She wore the suit with the skinny tie, and the pearly pink lip gloss she boosted from Shepard’s quarters years ago.

Her date wore the dress and heels, and dark hair coiled behind her head in some ridiculous way. Jack liked Ashley Williams more than she thought she would. More importantly, she and Shepard were tight, and Jack just couldn’t do this by herself.

“You look hot,” Jack said. Shepard would’ve said ‘stunning’.

The asari server tried to push bubbly stuff on them. They both ordered hard liquor, just like Shepard liked.

“To Commander Shepard, bad ass and savior of the galaxy,” Ashley said, raising her glass.

Jack raised her glass. “I was going to say, ‘asshole and biggest hero complex of the galaxy,’” she said, “But that works.”

Ashley laughed. They clinked glasses.

Later, while Ashley took a message from work, Jack made her own private toast. She spoke Shepard’s name, the name she told Jack to call her. “I love you, you fucking moron,” Jack said, and drank deep. “You suck.”

 

THE END


End file.
